Awesome! Downloaded the MP3 and listened to it this morning on my way to work.

Love the discussion about Roddenberry's vision vs. DS9's stationary crossroads of cultures. I think it's easier to stick to those ideals when you're flying around and you get to leave some of the hostile/immoral cultures behind week to week and fly your starship to the next destination. But when you're stuck in the same place and can't "escape" the variety of culture and morals around you, it's frankly impossible to stay within those ideals on the screen. So your remarks about how DS9 confronts and questions the vision of Gene Roddenberry, I think you really hit the mark. DS9 stays within the Roddenberry universe, but it doesn't run away from any of the cultures that have been established, neither does it embrace every culture. It simply presents a huge variety of cultures in one place living together. To me, that's just pure genius and a refreshing take on the Star Trek universe.

I also enjoyed your bluray remastering discussion. I'm really hoping we get DS9 on bluray with some of those older CGI scenes upgraded. That would be incredible.

And I'm happy to hear someone else who enjoyed the exploration of religion in a way that doesn't set out to say the religion is inherently evil or silly and doesn't ultimately always prove the religion is false, but instead shows the depth of the religion in both good and bad ways and has an honest conversation about it with the characters on the screen, then leaves the question of "what is true" up to the viewer.